NY Times Considering Monthly Subscription Fee

The New York Times Co. sent a survey asking their current print subscribers if they would pay $5/month to access their online content.

Now what does this have to do with fashion you ask? First of all, it’s well known in the fashion industry that The NY Times and the International Herald Tribune are some of the most influential news media in fashion journalism today. Cathy Horyn and Suzy Menkes are today’s star journalists who give amazing insights and write thoughtful articles on fashion. They’ve been banned from fashion shows before due to their no-nonsense approach to criticizing fashion collections, and thank god. We have too many suck ups in this industry as it is. And it’s not for the benefit of profits they are writing these reviews anyhow, it’s giving a justified opinion. Much more different than actual slandering of a brand with no basis of research, thus, we need more voices like them truly giving a good look at what these high end brands are offering on the table.

Back to the NY Times.

Quite frankly, I would have to say to them: “What took you so long?”

Honestly, if you’re paying X amount for a print version (it’s been so long since I’ve actually bought a newspaper) of the newspaper, it’s only logical that you should be paying for the online version as well. Who’s brilliant idea was it to share all this information for free online anyway? No wonder the publishing industry is back tracking now and charging users for content. They’re clearly going to lose readers because of this poorly planned transition online. And as so much news is spreading around the internet, it would be difficult for hackers to share news articles since RSS feeds and other types of aggregators will stop being able to access the content without a login access.

The problem lies that fashion is a niche news source, and since the NY Times and IHT only post a few fashion articles a week, paying subscribers could easily share these paid contents with others online for free, although that would technically run into copyright issues. However, I still think those devoted to quality news sources wouldn’t mind paying a mere $5/month. It’s a bargain, and we’re saving trees in the process. Plus, the online fashion world would be quite lost without these two voices in the industry.

I also believe that fashion bloggers are aware of the dwindling ad revenues that are affecting the print industry, and I’m quite confident that they themselves are willing to save their favorite print sources, even if they don’t realize it yet. By save, I mean by shutting down altogether, not specifically meaning saving the printed medium. As the online fashion community grows, a sort of sisterhood is starting to form among us. If they want to continue getting their fashion feed, they will definitely take the necessary steps to organically change the fashion publishing industry in ways they see fit. It’s no longer in the hands of Wall Street honchos that will determine the fate of fashion publishing industry, it will be the readers who will take matters into their own hands.

I’m also confident that the print industry will be reduced to a niche industry. I don’t really believe it will die out completely. The transition to online content will only reinforce how precious the printed version of a magazine truly is. If say Vogue moves all of their content online, from a readjusted budget, they will probably release special edition print versions of their online content and push the envelope of designing a stunning piece of product. Pricey but well worth it.

My vote goes for “pay for content” all the way from reputable news sources.